Another week in Lockdown. We remain healthy and reasonably content with a few things ticking along nicely. My eyebrows did, however, go up when Rachel announced her latest alternative to having a bonfire.
As you might already know, Rachel has a penchant for the odd bonfire at the bottom of the garden and has been scuppered by the blummin Council banning said fires.
We have made a good start on the garden this year and I think we are both pleased with the general tidiness but there is the odd weed here and there still appearing. So Rachel has seized on the odd weed as justification to buy a FLAME THROWER. It has yet to arrive and I must admit to some trepidation….
New website!
I had been chatting to one of my college friends about his website and the struggles he’s been having. So in a roundabout way this nudged me into starting a new website. I had bought the domain name a few years back but never did anything with it.
The biggest challenge was trying to remember how to link the domain name with the host and then to install WordPress. After a bit of head scratching I again figured this out decided to use it as a photography website (with my hosting plan, the cost is minimal).
There is a blog section and although I have lots of ideas in my mind about things I can say there, I don’t suppose it will ever be a huge trending blog. It will be a bit of an outlet for me and a place to plonk some of the photos I have made over the years.
So why not take a look? You can even subscribe to it and that would be helpful in getting things going. For now there are some black and white portraits from my three visits to Kenya, a handful of other portraits and let’s just see where it goes. As always, I am open minded about where this could all lead and I’m open to discussions about possible creative projects in the future.
And here’s the website: https://doughook.co.uk
Long hilly run
Last Friday I did my favourite hilly run. Depending on whether I cut a corner or not, it is 7 or 7.25 miles. I thoroughly enjoyed it although the hills are hard going, I thoroughly enjoyed it (for local friends it included Beech Road and Hollicks Hill).
While I was running I had such an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness. Thankfulness that I could do such a run. Thankful I could feel my lungs breathing in air deeply into every nook and cranny, thankful for my heart beating at full speed and blood was surging through every tiny little capillary in my body. My legs and feet were propelling me along, balancing and adapting to some uneven paths – all those tiny bones in my feet, muscles and ligaments were all working together, step after step after step.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the incredible creation our bodies are, how we are designed and made. How my mind benefits enormously through having a good demanding run and how I reflect on things and often see things from different angles. I love it.
However later that evening I began coughing. I tried not to think of the Coronavirus. As we settled into bed I was coughing like crazy. Rachel took my temperature and it was 36 point something, so not running a fever. Eventually I settled down and slept continuously for 10 hours.
Since then I have had a bit of a cough, just occasionally but noticeably before bedtime. I don’t think it is the virus but it has the effect of making me a bit jumpy and wary.
Decluttering, again
Last week we had a few rainy days and I suggested we go up into the loft to try and bring some order there. To be honest this is something we have both been dreading, for slightly different reasons.
We have managed to fill the wheelie bin and found Becky’s GCSE art pieces which can now be posted to her in Exeter. She did her art on various sized canvasses, little did she know that five years later her Dad would be figuring out the best way of posting them to her!
It was Rachel coming across some of Becky’s old clothing which made us laugh. Rachel found 50 pairs of socks! We remembered how Becky would often complain that she never had enough socks and, well, I don’t know if I’m posting these to her or not. FIFTY pairs of socks! I can’t imagine ever having that many; they’d last me for twenty or thirty years.